Texas Gov. Rick Perry came under thundering criticism Thursday for his spectacular stumble in Wednesday night’s debate among Republican candidates.
Gearing up for a significant statement of policy, Perry said he would eliminate three agencies of government, but could name only two. “Commerce, education and the — what’s the third one there? Let’s see … commerce and let’s see. …. I can’t. The third one. I can’t. Sorry. Oops.”
Perry knew he had stumbled bad. In the media filing center after the debate he said, “Yeah. I stepped in it, man. Yeah it was embarrassing. But here’s what’s more important: People understand that our principles, our conservative principles, are what matter, not a litany of agencies that I think we need to get rid of.”
It was a clumsy performance. But he was right. What he has to say, what he would do as president, is more important than his debate performance.
Attention should be focused on his promise to do away with the departments of Commerce, Education and — it finally came to him — Energy. It is a promise that harks back to Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America in 1994, which sent a horde of freshman Republican members of Congress to Washington pledged to eliminate huge chunks of the federal government.
Didn’t happen. What did happen was a shutdown of the federal government that infuriated the American people and set the stage for Democratic victories in the next election.
Truth is, the people don’t want a president who comes into office brandishing a chainsaw, crying “Off with their heads” as if he were the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland. The cabinet departments of Energy, Education and Commerce were created to deal with those hugely important areas of our nation’s activities. A promise to abolish them is a promise to mutilate the federal government and wound the American people.
WEDNESDAY’S DEBATE demonstrated three things: Mr. Perry didn’t really think very long about his plans for the nation or he would not have forgotten which federal departments he would destroy; he has serious trouble with grammar and doesn’t know the difference between a cabinet department and a government agency; his obsession with states’ rights has kept him from gaining a national perspective.
The performance should be all the demonstration his party needs that he is not qualified for the nation’s highest office.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
